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Who We Are
Bill Magee, Ph.D.
William Magee, Ph.D. University of Virginia, founded the Dharma Farm. For many years, Bill was Vice President of the UMA Institute for Tibetan Studies. He was an Associate Professor at Dharma Drum Buddhist College in Jinshan, Taiwan. Bill also taught Classical Tibetan at Maitripa College.
Among his many publications are The Nature of Things: Emptiness and Essence in the Geluk World, and with Elizabeth Napper Fluent Tibetan: A Proficiency-Oriented Learning System for Novice and Intermediate Tibetan. Dr. Magee also published four volumes translating sections of Jam-yang-shay-pa's Great Exposition of the Interpretable and the Definitive. These translations are available free of charge at the UMA Institute for Tibetan Studies.
Bill passed away on February 20, 2023. His tireless work with students and on translations is an inspiration to all of us.
Craig Preston, J.D.
Craig, Jules. and their classmate Daniel Cozort began four years of Tibetan together at the University of Virginia in the fall of 1978, studying translation with Jeffrey Hopkins, Elizabeth Napper, and Joe B. Wilson from 1978-1982. Jules and Dan went on to get their PhD with Hopkins. Craig went on to Law School at UVA and then practiced law in Virginia as a public defender until 1993.
Bill Magee went through the same Tibetan translation program at UVA a few years after Jules, Dan, and Craig. Craig and his family moved to Ithaca, New York in 1993, where he began teaching Classical Tibetan translation at the Namgyal Institute of Buddhist Studies along with Bill.
Since 2000, Craig taught Classical Tibetan intensives in Ithaca, Taos, New Mexico, in Northern California, and for six years at Maitripa College in Portland Oregon. From 2007 to 2010 Craig was a Research Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at the University at Buffalo and with Rebecca Redwood French, Ph.D., J.D. translated Tibetan law codes.
He is the author of How to Read Classical Tibetan, Vol. I & II, and co-author with UVA classmate Daniel Cozort of Buddhist Philosophy: Losang Gonchok's Short Commentary to Jamyang Shayba's Root Text on Tenets.
Since 2010, Craig has worked with Jeffrey Hopkins on many volumes published by the UMA Institute. Craig's Getting into Emptiness, Jam-yang-shay-pa’s Great Exposition of the Middle: Chapter Six, Introduction — Meaning of “The Manifest,” Vessels, Nāgārjuna’s Lives, and Sameness, along with other volumes are available for free download at the UMA Institute for Tibetan Studies. Craig is Director of The Dharma Farm and Chair of the Tibetan Department.
Jules Levinson, Ph.D.
Jules Levinson graduated from Princeton University in 1975 and soon thereafter began studying at the University of Virginia under the guidance of Dr. Jeffrey Hopkins and the eminent Tibetan scholars invited by the University’s Center for South Asian Studies.
In 1994 Levinson received a doctoral degree in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia. His previous publications include Essential Practice, a translation of lectures given by Thrangu Rinpoche on Kamalashīla’s Stages of Meditation in the Middle Way School, and a contribution to Moon of Wisdom in which he translated Karmapa Mikyö Dorje’s commentary on Chandrakīrti’s refutation of the Mind-Only School in the latter’s Supplement to (Nāgārjuna’s) “Fundamental Treatise on the Middle Called ‘Wisdom.’” For many years, he has served as an oral translator for Thrangu Rinpoche, Khen Rinpoche Tsül-trim-gya-tso, and several of the younger teachers whom they educated.
At present, he lives in Boulder, Colorado, where he works for the UMA Institute for Tibetan Studies and occasionally teaches seminars at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Rob Vanwey, J.D., M.A.
Rob Vanwey graduated from the University at Buffalo Law School and History Department, focusing on early modern China, Tibet, and Central and South Asia. He worked with Craig and Rebecca Redwood French translating the Tibetan law codes, served as a researcher on the collected work Buddhism and Law: An Introduction, and edited the English translation of The Meditator’s Nest, Vols. I and II. Before and during his time in college, Rob worked as a firefighter and high-risk rescuer. From there he transitioned to law enforcement as a Senior Technical Analyst and Investigator in the New York State Division of Criminal Justice. He specialized in digital forensics and technology-driven crimes and received training and commendations from the United States Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the New York State Attorney General.
Since 2008, he has worked in Nepal in the non-profit sector. His organization, the EALS Global Foundation, develops technologies related to natural disasters. In 2015, he led a response mission to Nepal following the Gorkha earthquake, assisting hundreds of monasteries with managing all elements of the disaster, especially those in the Gorkha and Sindhupalchok Districts. Afterwards, he published the Emergency Preparedness Manual, a guide for preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters. The manual is freely available in English, Nepali, and Tibetan. Rob is also the co-founder of the Shailung Vocational Academy of Dolakha, Bagmati, Nepal, a non-profit school for disadvantaged adolescents seeking job skills in technology, hospitality, sustainability, and business. In 2023, he was awarded by Antar Rashtriya Samrasta Manch for Foreign Service in Nepal.
Currently, he lives about half the year in Buffalo, N.Y. where he provides consulting services for law firms on technology issues and manages the operations of EALS Global. For the rest of the year, he lives in Kathmandu, Nepal teaching cybersecurity, digital forensics, and ethical hacking at a local tech college, while overseeing research on environmental data collection strategies in the remotest areas of the Himalayas.
Andrew M. McKenzie
Andrew McKenzie includes in the least ridiculous part of his CV: classical guitar teacher, very widely unknown as experimental music producer, teacher of thinking, complementary education advocate and mood engineer. As a general consultant (you can consult him generally about anything), he has covered more ground than he cares to remember, and has suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous IT work, so you don't have to. However, within the Dharma Farm, he teaches beginners - from the ground upwards - the Tibetan language, as well as the rudiments of Tibetan Calligraphy. Fred (that's him on the left) occasionally pretends to help. Perhaps.
Paul Hackett, Ph.D.
Paul Hackett, Ph.D. Columbia University. Paul Hackett specializes in canonical Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan culture, as well as their influence on contemporary alternative religion in America. He is active in the field of applied computational linguistics and serves as the chair of the Tibetan Information Technology Panel for the International Association for Tibetan Studies. He previously taught Classical Tibetan language at Columbia and Yale universities. Paul is the author of Theos Bernard, the White Lama: Tibet, Yoga, and American Religious Life; A Tibetan Verb Lexicon; and Learning Classical Tibetan: a Reader for Translating Buddhist Texts. Paul is Chair of the Sanskrit Department.
Jules
Craig
Rob Anchor
Andrew Anchor
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